DOES ANYONE HAVE EXPERIENCE USING EXPERT NETWORKS (EG GLG) ?
I am evaluating an investment in a company that makes access to expert networks more standard and affordable using technology. I am wondering to what extent searchers may be good consumers of expert networks services.
In any case, I’d love to hear more from you guys on this topic. And any other bright ideas on what is making the search more effective.
this sounds very interesting. I used expert networks such as GLG extensively when I did Due Dilligence work at Bain & Company. These networks charge you roughly $1000 for an hour of expert time and take a large chunk of it.
It looks like they are employing quite a manual process to find these experts (e.g. scraping Linkedin).
As a searcher I would pay ~[redacted]for an expert during a due dilligence. I would simply reach out to them personally without a network. If a network can match that price I would be happy to use it.
Best
John
The business model has a fragility: the advised company may directly contact the consultant.
I've also used consultancies to help do research (McKinsey) and have done several expert calls with others (LEK). As an expert, the core benefit of a purely consultative approach is there is virtually no effort for me to accept and be interviewed, and ultimately compensated for my time. So the cost/benefit is skewed in my favor. As a director using these consultancies to do market research, I find consultancies find the best experts and are very high touch, but at a much higher cost.
Ultimately, these expert networks adhere to marketplace dynamics as their core value prop is efficiently matching expert supply to project demand. If the opportunity you are looking at (or you) can reduce barriers to entry for experts and/or reduce cost for projects, then you might have something compelling.
The paid consultation sessions did not come to me in those few months I was active, so I lost interest in them.